


true romance

by aishiteita



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2018-12-24 13:38:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12013905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aishiteita/pseuds/aishiteita
Summary: this is where i dump soonwoo drabbles yeha





	1. valentine

**Author's Note:**

> hi!!!!! ive been away for Not Too Long but im actually gonna be busy bc i Fucked Up and these are A Lot Of Courses. 
> 
> i miss yall on swn, i miss my momther cat and i miss everything!!!!! but things are going well. <3 i hope u will enjoy these tiny things ive written in the past month ish and mayb for the coming year haha

This is how their mutual understanding comes to being: Soonyoung learns that when he falls asleep on Wonwoo's couch, the other would lean in close ( _so_ close) to the nape of his neck, to the point where Soonyoung can feel his inhales, the significantly warmer exhales, the timid fingertips. Wonwoo learns that Soonyoung smiles small, but for a much longer time, when he lends him one of his many handmade print hoodies. Something about it being softer, Soonyoung told him once, and he never quite elaborated further.

This is how their mutual understanding comes into play: Soonyoung stupidly waiting for Wonwoo to say something, anything at all, because he knows (or at least hopes he does) that Wonwoo feels the same way. Wonwoo does. The problem is that he's waiting on the other side of things, hoping that Soonyoung feels the same way because Soonyoung doesn't usually wait much. Scratch that, Soonyoung doesn't wait, period. Soonyoung flits about smile to smile and some part of Wonwoo hopes that Soonyoung would wait for him. That would make Wonwoo special, in a way. Somewhere inside them, they know they're running simultaneously away from and after each other in a funny little circle. Somewhere _deeper_ inside them, they hope things work out, some way.

This is how their mutual understanding fails: Soonyoung goes on an unexpected business trip, somewhere between a month and two, possibly three _because my boss is a fucking idiot_ , and Wonwoo is stuck with an empty apartment next to his. He knows where Soonyoung keeps his spare key, and diligently cleans his place for the first week he's gone. By the second week, it became simple sweeping. Then lazy dusting. Then mere checkups for important mail when Soonyoung calls him in the morning to do so. He doesn't have to, Wonwoo knows, but he does anyway. But somewhere along the way, Wonwoo's _waiting for Soonyoung to come back_ becomes _waiting for the landlord to take Soonyoung's keys_. At this point, it has been six months. Soonyoung hasn't called at all after the fourth had passed.

So Wonwoo understands. He stops waiting, and hopes he's right when he believes that Soonyoung has done the same.

This is how their mutual understanding comes to being (for the second time): Soonyoung comes home to an empty apartment, which is expected, but what he didn't and _doesn't_ expect is an equally empty unit next to him, where the name plate _Jeon_ is still in place, but the man himself is nowhere to be found. _He moved just a few days ago_ , the landlord tells him, to which Soonyoung asks _where?_ to which he answers, _I don't know, he didn't say._

Soonyoung learns that he shouldn't have gone for so long, that he shouldn't have called Wonwoo for so many menial favors without asking _how've you been_ or at least an _I miss you_ slipped in at the end. The digits swim before his eyes, and when Wonwoo picks up his phone, his ears fail him—Soonyoung feels as if between his ear and the phone are five thick layers of wool. Hot. Itchy. It crawls under his skin and forces him to sweat.

Wonwoo learns that Soonyoung is sorry, and that he does want to see him, that Soonyoung wants to see Wonwoo too. It takes five train stops and ten minutes of walking for Soonyoung to reach Wonwoo's new apartment. It takes three seconds for Wonwoo to remember what Soonyoung looks like in detail, up close, face in his. It takes another ten seconds for Soonyoung to stop wheezing, and for Wonwoo to learn that waiting doesn't really work. It takes another two seconds for Wonwoo to pull Soonyoung in for a tight hug, all sharp bones and gangly arms, but he learns that Soonyoung complements him well. He learns that it tickles when Soonyoung smiles into his shoulder, kisses the skin there with a loud _smack_.


	2. midnight zone

One of the strongest forces known to man has to be frustration, is what Soonyoung thinks to himself as the lump in his throat expands, stretching the muscles of his throat to the point where he could feel them tear, feel the skin rip and burn.

"Soonyoung."

He will not cry. His eyes are opened as wide as they go, they're dry. He blinks. No tears will run down his cheeks.

"Soon-ah," comes the gentle voice, coaxing— _gently—_ perfectly quiet and its low tone stills the air, robs the ceiling fan's noisy whirr. Soonyoung brings his arms up over his face, feeling the tell-tale quiver of his lip which he promptly bites down.

His voice fails him. It shakes, the spit he couldn't taste at all earlier repulsively clinging to every word now. "Don't look here."

Fingers reach out towards him; Soonyoung remains guarded, arms tense and locked into place so they won't be pried away from his face. He watches the dip of his flesh giving into pressing fingertips. It's a careful affair—he can't feel any nails, no digging into bone or wrist. _Peeling_ comes to mind. The current situation looks just as unflattering as the word sounds.

"I said don't look here."

"Mm-hmm."

" _Don't_."

"I'm not doing anything."

"Don't fucking _look here_ —"

It's downright uncomfortable, Soonyoung decides, trapped in an embrace when you have both arms crossed and hot tears running down your face. But like everything else, the embrace is unnecessarily kind. It's less of a hold and more of wide-open palms begging for something. It waits.

"I'm not looking." Soonyoung can practically hear the grin cracking through the syllables. "Soon-ah."

"Wonwoo."

"I love you."


	3. confetti

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lkjflkjflsf ilu my 2 felines cat n kat;;
> 
> also No i kno this isnt exac TLY how fire reacts to alcohol but i put dry grass there to make it seem more Possible.   
> also Yes i kno this is sloppy bc i cant proofread my own shit for my own life anymore

Soonyoung wouldn't call his feelings unconditional, he thinks.

There were times—when Wonwoo wore the same shirt five days straight and it started to smell a little too human for Soonyoung to not feel a little offended, or the times when Wonwoo completely spaced out, begged for Soonyoung's pardon even though he wasn't really begging. His eyes widened slightly, the corners of his mouth perked up so that Soonyoung couldn't fault him for not paying attention.

Then there were times—when the crowd overwhelmed their slight bodies and Soonyoung's clammy fingers clenched around thin air. Wonwoo had always been good at this; sharp knuckles calmly parting through a million different textures, reaching out, discrete. He tugged at Soonyoung's sleeve, traced the fabric surely until it met familiar skin, held on tight. Looking back meant earning a grin and a brief squeeze of his hand, now completely sweaty and getting Wonwoo's damp in the process.

"I want to get really, really drunk tonight," he said. Wonwoo nodded, shuffling in his seat. He had never liked the smell of vodka much. Soonyoung was aware of this.

So Wonwoo laughed. "Okay?"

Wonwoo was as transparent as he was opaque; Soonyoung gently pulled him out of unwanted conversations, watched for the cues on his face like a sailor's son reads the blinking lights across the ocean, eventually frustrating himself to near-death because he realized that the lights didn't make sense and no, he couldn't tell what Wonwoo was thinking, what he was feeling right here, right now, kissing Soonyoung's cheap Smirnoff-drenched skin all over—acrid.

They had never really told each other _I love you_. Wonwoo signaled it through a firm hand digging into Soonyoung's hipbone, and he understood just as much through Soonyoung's lips on the spot where his jawline blurred out into an earlobe.

 _I love you_ , these movements were supposed to say. Soonyoung instead drew mindless circles from them, without any definite beginnings or ends. He always wondered what it looked like Wonwoo's side.

The walk to the city's main street was chilly, and Soonyoung stuttered out his words in haphazard plumes too similar to the color of smoke. "Why are we watching a fucking Christmas lighting. We could be making out in your room." Wonwoo shrugged, teeth chattering as he imitated Soonyoung's motions through an air-cigarette, two fingers pressed again overly-puckered lips. "Fuck, it's so cold."

"Bear with it a little, okay?" Wonwoo huddled closer until their shoulders touched. "I'll take really nice pictures of us."

And he did. Wonwoo always took pictures. They just never turn out as nicely as he promised them to be.

There was pardon in every single one of Wonwoo's touches, an odd hesitation in his fingertips when they discovered that Soonyoung's skin, unlike his temperament, was cold most of the time. Wonwoo got mad at failed bank transactions. Soonyoung only had the tiniest, mildest sliver of irritation when he found out that his sister got involved with a sketchy trading scheme and needed a million won from him within the week. "Anger's weird," he told Wonwoo once, way back before they even considered each other as friends.

Wonwoo had tried to conceal it, at first. Soonyoung had to watch him explode in slow motion, catch the falling pieces before they actually hit the ground, piece them back together. It was easier than he thought, more tiring than his brain could actually handle.

After the Christmas lighting was a shitty movie marathon in bed. Soonyoung buried his head farther into Wonwoo's pillow with each passing second. "Don't like the movie?" Wonwoo asked. His knuckles smoothed down the lines of Soonyoung's cheek.

"No." Soonyoung held up a hand to stop Wonwoo's from moving. "Just tired."

"Which tired?" Wonwoo asked again, much more gingerly this time. His fingers didn't retaliate as Soonyoung clasped them tighter in his grip, for which he was thankful for because if Wonwoo were to tiptoe around him again, he wouldn't be able to handle it.

"I'm not too sure myself."

Wonwoo's anger contained itself in his wiry self until it expanded, stretched the limits of skin and seeped through the seams—little cuts he got when he cooked dinner without the lights on, exactly two fingers branded in one dark stripe from that one time he deep-fried chicken nuggets. The screaming dripped down in more accidents, a lack of awareness so alarming Soonyoung ate nothing but salad for the following week, keeping everything in check between them.

They were at Minghao's party, a tiny get-together in late February when the air tried to bite, scratch you as hard as it could before it left. Wonwoo's legs looked like twigs holding up the mass of his layered sweaters and down coat—a gift from his brother.

His fingers trembled bringing the hastily-rolled joint to his lips, lukewarm tequila ice in his hands by now. Behind Minghao's house was a patch of land melting into the woods. Wonwoo stood weakly in the midst of dry grass and frosted wind with half-empty solo cups surrounding him like a perverse fairy ring; Soonyoung observed from a porch, and chewed on the idle thought of how winter should last forever, how the wind should pick up its pace and tuck them all into bed as swiftly, as silently as possible under the heaviest blanket of snow it could carry.

In his eyes, Wonwoo brought the blanket. He would drag the blanket behind him, all wet and cold and heavy—a silent descent into quiet.

But the Wonwoo before his eyes wasn't the same as the one within, and Soonyoung watched it happen in slow motion, as he always did when it came to Wonwoo. The tequila spilling, Wonwoo's useless fingers losing his grip on the lighter, on the joint that was only half-smoked before its flame went out—the char of dry grass as Soonyoung's legs propelled his entire being into the hellish circle, arms waving up and down in a frenzy, more alert than they ever were when he tried to go sober. His windbreaker put out most of the flames, leaving only a few tiny spots which Wonwoo staggered over to, stomped out with his boots. It was a good half minute or so before Soonyoung caught himself wheezing.

"Are you out of your mind?" he shrieked.

Wonwoo had no words. He stubbed out the joint, rubbed his wind-chafed face raw before dragging all ten fingers down his cheeks like he wanted to rip the skin off.

The month after was a blur of Minghao's concern in the form of minor felony that was making Wonwoo use Chan's student ID to visit a local counselor for free. Soonyoung picked him up after the sessions, Subway sandwich in hand, face pale in the cold but his ears were always pink. Wonwoo once commented saying it would be a good look once spring comes.

"Sorry about your jacket," he once said on their way back. "You can have mine."

Soonyoung guffawed, "That heavy thing? Keep it."

Wonwoo appeared with a thrifted windbreaker only one color away from being identical to Soonyoung's old one, the one which now had one huge, gaping hole in its back and at least ten smaller ones burned into the sleeves.

"Thanks," Soonyoung muttered, laughter weak when it escaped him.

"No, thank _you_."

His chest hollowed out only to refill itself too much too quickly. He couldn't breathe too well when Wonwoo pulled him into a hug, all bones and zippers. These were his bones. Wonwoo offered them to him and it never was a matter of condition—Soonyoung simply accepted.

And that was that.

 


End file.
